The Mail Girl
by Luca-Pacheco
Summary: This is the story of Abby's origin and her relationship with Gibbs. Warning for potentially controversial/uncomfortable subjects.
1. Desperation

**Title:** The Mail Girl

**Spoilers:** None

**Warnings:** Well, this might be a tad controversial, but this bunny just won't leave me alone.

**Disclaimer:** Characters aren't mine, this is not for profit, etc, etc…

-000-

"Are you in love with her?"

"I've never cheated on you."

"That's not what I asked."

"She's fifteen! I would never…!"

"That's not what I asked either, stop evading the question. Are you in love with her, Jethro?"

He didn't answer. He just avoided her gaze, lest the truth would come out of his eyes.

"When I married you I knew what I was getting into, I wouldn't be jealous of your girls, the dead don't scare me ok? I just thought some part of you had died and you couldn't give your heart to anyone else and I was gonna live with it, but this… girl, she's alive and she's a teenage brat and you gave it to her in a second! Not to me, your wife, but to her!" She looked at her husband's face, and discovered a stranger. Everything was in vain. "I'm packing my stuff and getting out of here. I don't need this shit, my lawyer will get in contact with you. That girl will be the death of you."

Gibbs stayed silent and still while his soon to be ex-wife packed her belongings and left the house. He was pensive. However, his thoughts weren't with the woman that just left, but with the one they had fought about.

-000-

Leroy Jethro Gibbs was a desperate man in a desperate situation. He had spent years dealing with his conflicted feelings: He hated them, he fought against them and, at last, he rationalized them, until they went numb. It didn't mean they went away. It just meant he learnt to treat Abby like nothing was going on, acting like he didn't care when she had someone by her side, or scaring them away with the pretense of protecting her. It meant he got used to the discomfort and the sadness, the closeness that was never close enough, the dull pain that would awaken every once in a while. That wasn't the only chronic ache in his heart by far, but it was the one he couldn't share event if he wanted to: the one that no one would understand, the one he had to deal with in silence, even as it was slowly killing him.

Gibbs and Abby, they were like the baby elephants who would grow up stronger than the rope that tied them, yet wouldn't dare to rip it off and break free. Even when the obstacles had fallen, the taboo and guilt remained, preventing them from shattering that invisible thin layer that kept them from being everything they could be. Nonetheless, he was growing tired and running out of patience. This situation was unsustainable.

**A/N: This story takes places between the time when Abby was 15 years old and the present. 15 is the youngest Abby is during the whole story.**


	2. Curiosity

"Hi, I'm looking for Special Agent Gibbs, do you know where he is?" A female voice called.

He turned around and saw her. A really young girl, dressed in all black with a small splash of color here and there, with black hair, pale porcelain skin and the greenest eyes he'd ever seen. She stared at him innocently, with a hint of a smile on her face. He nodded, and his lips curved upwards just the tiniest bit.

"That's me," Gibbs answered.

"This is for you," she said brightly, and gave him an envelope. He barely glanced at it, that was obviously nothing important. He was more curious about the deliverer. The agent studied her apprehensively, she didn't look at all like she belonged there.

"How old are you?" he asked.

"Hello to you too. I'm Abigail Sciuto, but everybody calls me Abby. I'm fifteen years old, and you?"

"Shouldn't you be at school now?"

"Nope. I'm in college. I'm studying chemistry. I'm from New Orleans, so I'm staying with some nuns, but my family visits every weekend. I'm the new mail girl here, I work part time because I like to have some extra money. It's not that I need it because I have a scholarship, but I like to buy some expensive stuff, and there's a lot I can learn here. I gotta go, bye!" she said and went away, giggling quietly and handing envelopes to other people in the bullpen.

He looked at her with his jaw dropped, completely enthralled. How in the world could someone talk so much, so fast? Did she ever breathe?

"Did you see her?" Stan Burley asked, noticing his superior was distracted, a truly rare sight. "That girl must have nerves of steel to just come and talk to you like that…"

"And why's that, Steve?" he spat back.

"Nothing, boss, nothing…"

"Abigail doesn't have prejudices yet, she doesn't know what's dangerous and what's not"

"Oh, you know her name already," Stan caustically pointed out.

"She introduced herself," Gibbs explained, "told me a lot of things."

"Of course she did", the younger agent muttered under his breath.

"Shouldn't you be working?"

"Yes Boss, I'm on it!"

Gibbs went back to his paperwork as usual, but for the rest of the day, he felt lighter than before. There was the smallest bounce in his step. No one noticed it, not even himself, but it was the bounce he got when something brightened his day, which didn't happen often.


End file.
